A/N: Sorry for the wait, I was hoping to get this up faster but I had serious case of writer's block. Thank you sincerely for all those who reviewed (7 for one chapter!), alerted, and favorited. All are forms of encouragement that I greatly appreciate. Again my thanks goes out to my simply amazing beta, laurajslr, she got this chapter done in less than 2 hours, at an unholy hour of the night. Simply amazing. Additionally I am considering doing a sequel to this piece, is there any interest in one? I would work the elements into the plot henceforth if there is. As always love to hear from you all. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor

Chapter 13:

They lay on Rose's pallet at the mouth of the cave, the Doctor curled around her protectively. The Doctor supported his head with one hand and teased his other hand through the golden cascade in front of him. "Rose?"

"Yes," she muttered contentedly, snuggling up closer to him.

"I just want to explain to you why I want to understand the Tenebres. They..." His hand stopped its steady rhythm through Rose's hair as she turned her head up to look him in the face.

"Doctor, I don't want to hear it. I already said I'd wait. I trust your judgment." She moved away from him and sat up, shaking her hair back into a ponytail and tying it up.

"Please, just hear me out. I think it's important." He reached out and took Rose's hand.

"Alright…" She knew it was no use trying to silence the stubborn Time Lord. "But know that you're already forgiven."

"Rose Tyler, what have I done to deserve you?" The Doctor grinned and pulled her close, nestling her head underneath his chin. "You truly are brilliant, absolutely brilliant. One of the best days of my lives, the day I met you, 'course I didn't know it at the time."

She gave a small laugh as his throat tickled her ear. "Go on…" She was serious, but her voice still held a lilting filament of joy.

"On with what, singing your praises to the stars? I could do that for all of eternity," he joked, trying to lighten the dark undercurrent of the conversation.

"No silly," she gave him a gentle shove, "the Tenebres. What did you want to say?"

"Ah…yes…that." He drew her closer. "I promised that I would help you defeat the Tenebres. I still intend to keep that promise."

"Uh huh, I know that." She glanced to her pack where the pyramid had been hidden from view. It seemed to be a part of her now, like a fifth limb. Even when it was out of sight she could still sense it, throbbing with potential energy.

"I just wanted to make sure. Rose, the reason I questioned you back there is because…Well, because for a moment there I was them. I could sense their entire being; they're so different from us. They're full of foreign ideas and concepts that were difficult for me to handle without the TARDIS helping me." The Doctor grasped Rose's hand in his own and began to play with it, tracing the scars with his long fingers.

"Speaking of the TARDIS, why didn't we bring her with us?" Rose inquired.

"She was too big. The rift was only big enough to fit us small sized humanoids, barely. Julius almost didn't make it through with us because it was such a tight fit. I wish he hadn't, his presence just complicates the matter." The Doctor's face, hidden from Rose's view, twisted grimly.

Rose seemed to sense the Doctor's unhappiness, shifting slightly so the he could see her encouraging smile. He sighed then continued, "I was so deeply entwined with the Tenebres that I was forced to question what we really know about them, which is exactly nothing. We don't know why they're here; we don't even know what they are. Barker seems to think they're a road to power, and you see them as a race that wants to wipe out Earth," he quickly added, "rightly so."

"How do you propose finding more about them? Torchwood had all the best equipment, and we couldn't even figure it out." Rose looked skeptical.

"Time Lord, remember?" he tapped a finger lightly to his temple, "I'm telepathic. They reached out for me once, I'm hoping I can do the same."

"Last time it didn't go so well if you recall. You may like to think otherwise but you're still recovering from poisoning and a gunshot wound. I won't let you do this." She crossed her arms, daring the Doctor to contradict her.

"Rose Tyler, as I told a certain Martha Jones, I am nearly a millennium old. I think I can take care of myself," he huffed.

"But I like rude and not ginger. Who's to say the next regeneration wouldn't be as…well, foxy to quote our beloved trampoline?" She grinned coyly up at him.

"Oi! Children are sleeping nearby." The Time Lord sighed and became serious, "I'm going ahead with this, but I can take a precaution if you're willing."

Rose contemplated the situation for a moment. She knew that she couldn't win a contest of wills with the obstinate Doctor; she had tried in the past and failed. It was best to concede graciously; usually the Doctor knew what he was talking about. "And what would that be?"

"I can anchor myself; keep an open line you might say, with you. That is if you want to. You would ground me; keep me from getting lost within them. The only thing is that you'd be peripherally aware of them, so I can understand if you don't want to do it. I'm going through with this regardless." He hoped that she wouldn't refuse; she needed to come to terms with the enemy. An enemy, he suspected, that wasn't out for the world, but rather another, more indefinable reason.

After a moment of thought she spoke, "I'll do it, only because it might provide me with some insight into destroying them. I won't forget what they have done to me and those I love."

"I understand. It's probably best to do it here. Jack can take care of Barker and himself, I'm sure they're fine. Here there's less chance of interruption. Do you feel up to it now?"

"Doctor, I'm not the one that will be flinging my consciousness into the void of darkness," Rose reminded him.

"Alright then; I want you to imagine yourself as a tree, roots stretching deep into the ground. No storm can blow you over, no matter how fierce it becomes." Rose fell into the easy pattern of breathing she remembered from the lessons he had given her before she left the TARDIS. "Now imagine that you're reaching your branches out towards the sun. Reaching and reaching, seeking the golden warmth upon your leaves."

The Doctor closed his eyes and started to breathe in unison with Rose. He sensed her on the edges of his awareness; a flitting golden touch. She had pulled her mind into a tight bubble, firmly entrenched to the present. Tendrils of golden sparks were reaching out from the central cluster, she was searching for the golden warmth: him. Carefully he grasped one of the tendrils, allowing his own consciousness to stream away along its length. A part of him was now aware of Rose, the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, the slow beat of her single heart.

Good, he sent along their connection, Just hold it there.

She sent a tentative affirmation.

Reaching out the Doctor sought to explore further than the accepting glow of Rose's mind. Her consciousness was like a hearth fire, a slow blaze that embraced him. It took all of his effort to tear himself away from the welcome warmth and into the cold void beyond their linked minds.

Now that he had expanded his perception the Doctor could vaguely sense the minds of the life around him. They were bright spots in the black void. His mind skirted the edges of the abyss the other Time Lords once occupied, he had once wished to loose himself there but now…now he had Rose. She was the golden wall that guarded his mind from the yawning chasm. Beyond the void a faint link stretched beyond the fabric of the universe, it thrummed, taunt as a piano wire. Running his mind along its length the Doctor could faintly sense the TARDIS. Expanding his mental sight even further he finally encountered the blaze of the Tenebres. They looked dark to the naked eye but to his internal vision they burned with the light of a thousand suns. Squinting, he reached out carefully, dragging the most tender of touches along the outer rim of the conflagration.

It was like being a bug caught under the gaze of a hungry sparrow. The entire focus of the Tenebres shifted onto him. He sensed a ripple run through their ranks. Now that he was this close he could see that the mass was made of up billions of individual bonfires. All of which were focused on him.

A flood of emotions, images, and thoughts inundated the Doctor's brain. They were trying to communicate with him but it held no context for him. He managed to raise a wall against the endless tide and sent out his own query.

I come in peace. Why are you here?

The response shifted to mirror his pointed inquiry; it took up the pattern of language. The chaotic movement among the Tenebres settled until they moved as one, yet still acted as many.

Single approach home space

Not single. Another inhabit other home space. Two sum together lesser than non singles.

Lesser speaks to non singles who inhabit home space. Lesser possesses question.

Lesser seeks knowledge. Do non singles answer?

Negation

Please, hear me; I am the Doctor. What do you want here? Why do you seek to destroy these people? he called at them, but his touch was brushed aside like it was of no more consequence than a tickling feather. The Doctor shouted at them, both mentally and vocally, Darkness I name you, answer me! Along the link they shared, the Doctor could sense Rose's teaming emotions but he had no thought to spare for her, the tumble of communication from the Tenebres took all his attention.

Lesser names itself the Doctor.

Names non singles Darkness. Concepts unfamiliar.

Darkness…Name…Explain.

It was not a request; the Doctor felt the many minds reaching towards him, seeking the context to the words. They had no concept of individuality; for all intents and purposes it was one being. As a result they were willing to simply pluck the knowledge from his mind with no regard if it left him a drooling babe, not to mention what it might do to Rose. Wait! I'll explain. They halted, lingering on the edges of his mind. A name is a marker of individuality, something used to distinguish between many separate beings. Just as I am separate from you, thus I have a name. I named you Darkness because that is what you appear to be; the absence of light for those below you. I'm sorry I can't do any better than that.

Darkness…understands. We are one.

The sensation of many vanished, to be replaced by the awareness of one mind.

Doctor speaks of below. Explain.

Again it was a command. The Doctor realized that the Tenebres had no concept of traditional space. They were aware only of the telepathic world, blind and deaf to the physical world. To them Earth was merely a concentration of flickering minds among the vast wilderness of emptiness. Those who you sense are those below, the concentration of minds, from where I come from. They are they ones you are fighting. I seek the answer to why you are doing this.

They are our children.

OOOOOOOO

Jack awoke to a throbbing head and a mouthful of dirt. He attempted to get up but made the rather unpleasant discovery that his hands were tied, tightly. His mouth had the cotton taste that usually cropped up after he had just been brought back. So whatever had attacked him in the clearing had killed him. Jack sighed; he had died more in the last few days than he had in the last year alone, an unfortunate side effect of traveling with the Doctor.

He was face first in the dirt, and it was dark; he had no idea where he was, or where Barker had ended up. The man truly deserved to die. Jack almost hoped that the creature had killed him as well, but that might mean the key to defeating the Tenebres had gone with him. It was a double-edged blade; Barker was a danger to keep alive but they faced a greater danger if he died without telling them the secret.

Grunting, Jack flipped himself over, as graceful as a floundering fish. Hands bound tightly behind his back he stared helplessly into the endless night. He couldn't see anything, he could be anywhere by now. Softly he called out, "Barker are you there?"

No one answered. The dark pressed on his eyes and no sound carried to his ears. If it wasn't for the dull throbbing of his trussed hands he would have thought that he floated in the void, deprived of all sensation. Jack strained to hear even the tinniest of noises, but there was nothing.

For an eternity he lay there, jumping at imaginary sounds. Finally a twig cracking caused him to jolt upright, useless eyes flitting to similar patches of dark. "Who's there?"

A moan answered, it was the same moan that he had heard back in the clearing. Tensing, Jack prepared to defend himself; he really didn't want to die again. A vague silhouette appeared, it was a void against the uniform darkness. Hands grabbed him and hauled him upright. They dragged him along, stumbling on rotting deadwood and roots. Finally his sensitive eyes caught the faint flicker of firelight, the hypnotic dance of illumination.

People, only in the loosest sense of the word, sat in a rough circle around the light. There were about twenty of them, all dressed in rags coated in dirt and blood, all with the same drooling expression. They were motionless, staring fixedly at the man closest to the fire. The man was none other than a very content looking Julius Barker.

"Jack, how good to see you!" Barker called out jovially at Jack's entrance. The man holding Jack forced him to kneel in front of Barker with a brutal kick to the back of his knees.

"Why aren't you dead yet Barker? Why couldn't these people have had the decency to kill you where you stood?" Jack growled from low in his throat.

"Ahh, you have forgotten something my dear Jack. You see I was never really in any danger from the insane people of this planet, not while I had this." He fondly patted a small orb held loosely in his left hand. Jack just stared at him, confused.

"So you still don't understand. My, my, the Doctor has certainly picked a thick lot to travel with. Or did he never tell you of the device that lets me bend men's minds to my will?" Barker sounded truly astonished.

"He did. I was under the impression that it wasn't something you carried around with you." Jack mentally cursed himself; how could he have forgotten? He should have expected they would run into people here, people who could be turned into living weapons.

"I see, just thick then. Well let me explain this to you carefully. I have a device. These are people. My device can influence people. I can make an army. An army that can hunt the Doctor, got it?" He spoke as if Jack was a small child.

Jack hung his head, guilt building in his heart. The Doctor, already weak and fighting an enemy that appeared impervious as darkness itself, now had another force to contend with. Who knew how many insane people Julius could find to hunt him down, and it was all Jack's fault. He had neglected to take the device, and to keep Barker from breaking free and starting his vendetta over again on a new world.

"Good, you are learning your place." All cheerfulness was gone from his voice, instead a malevolent threat dripped from each syllable. "I have a feeling that you would be the perfect addition to my army, the man who cannot die. Unfortunately, you seem to be unaffected by my converter, but there are other ways to break a man."

Jack's head snapped up, all color draining from his cheeks. Barker must have seen his resurrection.

Barker laughed; a mirthless laugh. "Yes I saw your pretty little trick. My guards told me of a man who came back from the dead, but I didn't believe them. But you were dead, I saw them rip out your throat, but yet here you are in front of me."

"I can't die. Congratulations on your discovery Barker." Jack spat, white-hot anger burning at his core. "I won't help you defeat the Doctor. I won't do it no matter what; I promise you that."

Insanity shone from Julius' eyes; he said happily, "And I promise you that the Doctor will pay dearly for what he has done. Believe me; he will pay."

F/N: Love to hear any comment/suggestions/concerns. Thanks!